Speculation about "the feelz" of D&D 4th Edition

[Garthanos]

Certainly compared to 3.x reach (ie 4e threatening reach, which is damn near unavailable to PCs)

I don't know if it's the same reason I'm not happy with 'em...

pet peeve alert: because if fighters had threatening reach in 4e, they'd've pulped lot of controller toes, a rare/obnoxious case of gratuitous niche protection in that edition, IMHO.

So build me a class feature and powers to support it that controller thread is a bit bare right now

 

[doctorbadwolf]

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] I agree with most of that. I've no problem with people liking the 5e fighter. I don't think it needs to be that boring in order to be simple and easy to use/learn, though. I wasn't bored by the essentials slayer, or the archer ranger, for instance.

But yeah 5e needs exactly what you described in that post.

It won't make me like the 5e fighter, which is, IMO, the worst iteration of the class, but it would improve the game overall.
[MENTION=6769983]Thea[/MENTION]d: is his about to turn into a "how to build a martial controller in 4e" thread? Bc I'm all in for that!

 

[JeffB]

I would just like to say I am really enjoying the insightful discussion here about 4e. Its too bad these types of threads could not thrive here 7 or 8 years ago.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Certainly compared to 3.x reach (ie 4e threatening reach, which is damn near unavailable to PCs)

I don't know if it's the same reason I'm not happy with 'em...

pet peeve alert: because if fighters had threatening reach in 4e, they'd've pulped lot of controller toes, a rare/obnoxious case of gratuitous niche protection in that edition, IMHO.

Well, its very hard to get threatening reach, but not UTTERLY impossible. Isn't there a PP (one that I think is really designed for wardens) that gives you limited TR? I'm pretty sure there's a way to get it in epic too, but again not full time.

 

[Tony Vargas]

[MENTION=996]I wasn't bored by the essentials slayer, or the archer ranger, for instance.

I was. Strikers in general, really.
Well, the slayer was good for about an hour of play before it palled.

It won't make me like the 5e fighter, which is, IMO, the worst iteration of the class, but it would improve the game overall.

Relative to the AD&D fighter the 5e has a lot of up-sides and really only comes out appallingly far behind on saving throws (OK, and tackling hordes).

[MENTION=6769983]Thea[/MENTION]d: is his about to turn into a "how to build a martial controller in 4e" thread? Bc I'm all in for that!

Maybe we can take that here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...llers-what-do-you-think&p=7036027#post7036027

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I was. Strikers in general, really.
Well, the slayer was good for about an hour of play before it palled.

Relative to the AD&D fighter the 5e has a lot of up-sides and really only comes out appallingly far behind on saving throws (OK, and tackling hordes).

Maybe we can take that here: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...llers-what-do-you-think&p=7036027#post7036027

I didn't mean efficacy, though, just how interesting the iterations have been.

Thematically, no iteration of the fighter has been interesting, IMO. It's always been a class you put your own thematically qualities onto, or use for multiclassing (in 3.x, to gain more feats).
also, I have very little memory of adnd, at this point.

But the essentials strikers, while less fun in many ways than their AEDU counterparts, weren't super dull, IMO. They still had things like stances, the Thief had a lot of movement stuff, the Scout had fun features and utility powers, etc. The 5e fighter has, what, Action Surge or whatever it's called? Kay.

I'll check out that thread, though.

 

[Parmandur]

I didn't mean efficacy, though, just how interesting the iterations have been.

Thematically, no iteration of the fighter has been interesting, IMO. It's always been a class you put your own thematically qualities onto, or use for multiclassing (in 3.x, to gain more feats).
also, I have very little memory of adnd, at this point.

But the essentials strikers, while less fun in many ways than their AEDU counterparts, weren't super dull, IMO. They still had things like stances, the Thief had a lot of movement stuff, the Scout had fun features and utility powers, etc. The 5e fighter has, what, Action Surge or whatever it's called? Kay.

I'll check out that thread, though.

The 5E Fighter hits hard and often , doesn't take as many hits, and could take a lot of hits at any rate. Putting the thematic elements in myself is a positive aspect of the passage; end up doing that with any character, anyways.

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[Garthanos]

I would just like to say I am really enjoying the insightful discussion here about 4e. Its too bad these types of threads could not thrive here 7 or 8 years ago.

i saw quite a few on WOTC site, and you missed some interesting stuff from Wrecan...

 

[pemerton]

Pemerton's example fighter needs to pump STR religiously, pick up Weapon Expertise pretty soon, and probably work on ways to exploit his weapon of choice (Heavy Blade Expertise, Hafted Defense, maybe one of the style masteries from MP2, etc.). In paragon he can access the polearm feats, acquire threatening reach, etc. too if he wants.

Pemerton's Fighter I think is PHB 1/2 only. But here are the likely ways that it didn't matter:
Pemerton could simply not throw unusually high AC opponents into the mix. Less Soldiers, more Brutes.
Pemerton could hand out more magic items. Having a +2 Halberd at say 3rd level wouldn't be too unusual, but would help with hitting.
The party could have a leader who handed out bonuses to hit and as a whole, the party would be focused on gaining flanks for Combat Advantage.

Sure. He could also emphasize things in his build like damage output and mark punishment, which were better supported in early 4e than increased to-hit.

Every player in my game has added to the PC's main stat at every ability gain. Including the dwarf fighter.

The fighter had the first magic weapon - a +1 weapon taken from a defeated higher-level NPC - but after the initial moments of item acquisition the increase in pluses has tended to be along the lines of the AV GM-mandated power-ups, which have been pretty constant across all the PCs as best I can recall (I probably have a record of it somewhere, but haven't dug it out for this post).

With Passing Attack, you need to hit first to get your second attack - I can't remember now exactly what strategies were used to help with this, but I would guess that combat advantage would be the main one (no leader in the party until at 6th level the player of the archer-ranger rebuilt the character as a hybrid ranger-cleric). From 3rd level the main strategy for hitting has been multiple attacks (the CB1 attack which adds STR to hit; then CaGI at 7th; etc).

From around 7th level, the PC has been the party's primary controller - by using CaGI, Footwork Lure, etc for positioning and then marking plus from somewhere around paragon the feat (with "pin" in the name) that immobilises a marked creature on a basic attack hit (and WIS bonus to OAs mean the character has never had much trouble landing basic attack hits).

As came up in some other recent thread (and provoked a response from [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION]) the PC is the most complicated at the table to play during combat, in terms of interactions between forced movement, feats that knock prone (Polearm Momentum, plus some OA booster), grant CA (Deadly Draw), immobilise (the "pin" one), knowing which attack sequence to use to activate which feats, knowing which weapon to use (he alternates between hablerd for reach and mordenkrad for damage), knowing when to heal, etc.

I don't like the "glom onto a single target till it's dead, then move to the next" gameplay, so as a DM I discourage it by running monsters more tactically than the players are running their character, to push them to engage with the entire enemy force.

I agree with this. Focus fire is boring. Superhero comics generally don't emphasise it. Action movies generally don't emphasise it.

As a GM - similar to what you describe - I use the NPCs/monsters in a way that tries to force engagement of the whole situation. The fact that 3 of 5 PCs in my main 4e game have multi-target attacks (close bursts for the fighter, area bursts for the sorcerer and invoker) tends to make this easier, and reduce the sense of focus fire.

Another way this works is to set things up so one (or both) of the defenders is keeping some particularly dangerous enemy off the rest of the group. Eg I remember when the PCs assaulted Torog's Soul Abattoir, the fighter solo-ed a Death Titan; and in the current situation in the game, the paladin is keepin a Hundred-handed One off the rest of the party. (Which is a signiicant debuff for the NPC, which gets one attack per nearby enemy.)

 

[pemerton]

I think MwaO simply may not be a fan of pole-arm builds The classic Pole-arm Momentum 'sticky as glue' build certainly makes reach DAMNED useful! Its also one that illustrates a good need for secondary abilities, as it has several ability score pre-reqs to meet, so it is certainly NOT a build you would dump a 20 STR onto.

Besides STR, at various stages the player has added to DEX, CON and WIS to meet pre-reqs for particular options, or to shift an odd number into an even one.

I don't have an especially good sense of how optimised my party is, but given the number of encounters they get through without needing an extended rest - which at paragon and epic has certainly been far more than the 4 per day that many posters have suggested is the default - they don't seem too shabby.

And as I said, I don't think the fighter player regrets his build choices. At epic his reach makes his close burst CB2 rather than CB1; and with Eternal Defender he has single target reach 3 rather than reach 2. That's a lot of battlefield control.

Also, on the topic of threatening reach you and [MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] are discussing: Polearm Gamble is, in effect, threatening reach against closing creatures. Given that a fighter's OAs stop movement, it is (in my experience) extremely effective, as it allows damage to be inflicted and stops the enemy inflicting damage for one turn. In practical terms it comes close to an at-will stun against enemies who lack their own reach.